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My personal, uninformed, opinion: Do aliens exist now, previously or in some time to come? Earth as a single planet has life. But a single item of data is impossible to extrapolate to give any meaningful statistics. There are countless stars and probably many more planets in what we consider potentially habitable zones. I'd like to believe there is some form of life on another planet somewhere. If not now, then in the past or future. But the chances of us finding out for sure are minimal to say the least.

And, come to think of it, they'd probably give earth a wide berth when they saw the the human penchant for wars.

I am totally against paying Aliens overtime. With the technology they had to have to get here, they could totally jack around with the space time continuum and before you know it, you're paying them time and a half after they only worked for 20 minutes.

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Yes to other species existing in the cosmos. No to our paths ever crossing.

Pretty sure they wouldn't be christian, because the bible doesn't even mention animals that exist more than a few hundred miles from where it was written. My guess is that if they get to the point of intergalactic travel they'd have transcended sun worship, gods, big foot, and ghosts.

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koiwoi wrote:Yes to other species existing in the cosmos. No to our paths ever crossing.

Pretty sure they wouldn't be christian, because the bible doesn't even mention animals that exist more than a few hundred miles from where it was written. My guess is that if they get to the point of intergalactic travel they'd have transcended sun worship, gods, big foot, and ghosts.

koiwoi wrote:Yes to other species existing in the cosmos. No to our paths ever crossing.

Pretty sure they wouldn't be christian, because the bible doesn't even mention animals that exist more than a few hundred miles from where it was written. My guess is that if they get to the point of intergalactic travel they'd have transcended sun worship, gods, big foot, and ghosts.

They would have to have a way to make sense of the universe. In other words, they'd have to believe in something. It might be science, logic, their political system or the power of their own intellect or it might conceivably be God in some form. From a Christian perspective, they would sin, which would necessitate a savior. What his/her/its name might be is debatable but I believe the same story might play out with different characters. As to how prevalent that particular belief system might be, that;s anyone's guess. Christians are in the minority on Earth, why would aliens be any different? I'm reminded of a Star Trek episode where there were aliens who had their own version of Christ.

koiwoi wrote:BTW - Gene Roddenberry had to fight to keep the execs from putting the religious bits in. They wanted to put a christian chaplain on the Enterprise.

Roddenberry was big on making sure the crew was "diverse" and a Christian chaplain would fly in the face of that. OTOH, he would've probably been all for it if there was a way to make money from it. In early discussions of the tricorder, its potential as a toy came up, and Spock's "Vulcan IDIC" was specifically created as an item fans would buy.

That said, no, I don't think we'll ever encounter aliens either. As you mentioned, the universe is just too big. Frankly, I doubt humankind will ever leave the Solar System. Depending on what propulsion system you use, it'll take anywhere from several weeks to several months just to get to Mars, which is across the street in terms of astronomical distances. There's antimatter trapped in the VanAllen belts (and possibly even more in the similar belts around Jupiter and Saturn) so I suppose we could collect enough to power spaceships but the distances are still huge and the travel times are daunting. Even exchanges by radio wouldn't be especially productive.